A CXXXX American Chemical Society Light Trapping in Solar Cells: Can Periodic Beat Random?

o meet the requirements for a global terawatt-scale deployment of photo-voltaics, further efficiency improve-ments and cost reductions are necessary. Advanced light-trapping schemes contrib-ute to both objectives simultaneously. By integrating properly engineered photonic nanostructures, sunlight can be trapped within the active absorber layer, thereby enhancing light absorption and thus con-version efficiencies.110 In addition, increas-ing absorption also allows one to reduce the absorber layer thickness, which impacts production costs and enables the use of less abundant absorber materials and material